“Breach exposes Suncoast accounts”

St. Petersburg Times

June 18, 2009

This story ran on 1A of the paper. It was a daily story about a credit union that had to reissue several thousand debit cards to its members. We had already been scooped on the story by another paper because a member had told them about the security breach. However, nobody knew the source of the breach. After spending a couple of hours calling experts and spokespeople, the U.S. Attorney’s Office finally confirmed to me that the source of the fraud was really a large breach that had occurred a year ago. We were the only news source to have that information.

“Debtor’s decision”

St. Petersburg Times

July 12, 2009

This was an alternative format story that served as the centerpiece for the Sunday business front. The idea that my editors gave me was that they wanted a guide to when people should file for bankruptcy. I looked up some numbers and found out that tens of thousands of people had filed for personal bankruptcy in the bay area in the last couple of months. I came up with a couple of scenarios of people at different stages of financial distress and spoke to credit counselors and a bankruptcy lawyer to make sure that there were enough details for each scenario.

“Nicole buys a hooptie”

St. Petersburg Times

July 26, 2009; Aug. 2, 2009; Aug. 9, 2009

I wrote a three-part series on buying my first car that ran on the front page of the business section for three Sundays in a row. The series was my idea for a consumer piece that details my month-long journey to buy a car. The articles were written as features columns where I shared my triumphs and defeats with research and financing, test driving and negotiating for a price. There was a cartoon and multimedia in addition to the articles.

“Defense firm is raided by feds,” “Young pulls Conax support”

St. Petersburg Times

July 16-7, 2009

This story was a 1A breaking news story. Someone had tipped the paper about a federal raid that was going on at a defense contractor that works with NASA. I went to the scene of the raid to get an official statement from the company. I phoned in the statement along with the details of the scene such as which federal agencies that I saw there for an online story. I also stayed longer than most of the other news outlets and ended up getting a statement from the agent in charge of the investigation. While I did the on-the-scene reporting, Alex Leary, a writer in Washington, D.C., spoke to a congressman about the company. The next day, I wrote a followup story that ran on the front of the Metro section about the company releasing a statement giving some indication about the purpose of the raid and talked to some experts about what all of it could mean. Alex Leary found out that the congressman was pulling his funding support for the contractor. He sent me his information, and we led with that.

“Nicholas Shanks refused to fail”

Philadelphia Daily News

July 24, 2008

I won a features award from the Society of Professional Journalists for this story. I had heard about this kid who had become a valedictorian at his high school even after he had lived in a shelter. An opinion columnist was going to write about him, but I asked her if it was okay if I did the story. I spoke to some of his teachers and people involved in his life and the lives of other city homeless children. It was difficult to get him to talk the first few times I spoke with him. He was naturally shy and didn’t say much. I visited his mother at their transitional housing, and I visited Nicholas at the shelter where he worked. I spoke to the both of them at least once a day for more than a week. His mother at first did not want to admit that she had been a drug addict, but after my convincing she allowed us to print it. The story got a lot of responses. It had great play on Page 4. I did a followup story about him the week after. He got his entire college tuition paid for with the help of donations because of the story I wrote.

“Witness: Bishop violated duties”

Philadelphia Daily News

June 11, 2008

One of my more interesting assignments was attending the ecclesiastical trial of a bishop accused of not alerting anyone about his brother sexually abusing a 14-year-old parishioner. The actual abuse had taken place 35 years prior. In three days, I sat through about 32 hours worth of testimony. Each day I had to write a story about what happened, making sure my angle was different than that of other news outlets.